Friday, May 09, 2008

Being an Evil Overlord seems to be a good career choice. It pays well, there are all sorts of perks, and you can set your own hours. However, every Evil Overlord I've read about in books or seen in movies invariably gets overthrown and destroyed in the end. I've noticed that no matter whether they are barbarian lords, deranged wizards, mad scientists, or alien invaders, they always seem to make the same basic mistakes every single time. Therefore, if I ever happen to become an Evil Overlord:

1. My legions of terror will have helmets with clear Plexiglas visors, not face-concealing ones.

2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.

3. My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.

4. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be kept in my safe-deposit box.

5. I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them.

6. When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?'' I'll say, "No.''

7. After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks' time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.

8. I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles.

9. I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.

10. No matter how well it would perform, I will never construct any sort of machinery which is completely indestructible except for one small and virtually inaccessible vulnerable spot.

11. My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which I could not accidentally stumble.

12. I will not imprison members of the same party in the same cell block, let alone the same cell.

13. Once my power is secure, I will destroy all those pesky time-travel devices.

14. I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about.

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